INXS, Midnight Oil, Men At Work To Tour U.S.

In a triple bill of Australian rock heavyweights that would have filled arenas in 1988, INXS, Midnight Oil, and Men At Work will team for a month-long North American tour this summer. The jaunt, with INXS and Midnight Oil alternating in the closing spot each night, begins May 28 in Atlanta and wraps June 27 in Las Vegas.

INXS will be fronted by Jon Stevens, replacing Michael Hutchence, who committed suicide in late 1997. The band is also said to be plotting a new studio album, which would be its first since 1997’s “Elegantly Wasted” (Mercury). As previously reported, Rhino will release the 42-track collection “Shine Like It Does (1979-1997): The INXS Anthology” this summer.

Midnight Oil, perhaps best known in the U.S. for the 1988 top-20 hit “Beds Are Burning,” has remained active in recent years, although none of its albums have been released in North America since 1998’s “Redneck Wonderland” (Columbia). The group’s most recent set, “The Real Thing,” was released in Australia last July.

Men At Work, which scored No. 1 hits in the early ’80s with “Down Under” and “Who Can It Be Now?,” were reformed in 1996 by singer/guitarist Colin Hay and saxophonist/flutist Greg Ham after a decade-long hiatus, recruiting new members and embarking on two South American tours. These performances yielded the 1998 live album “Brazil” (Sony), which also featured a new studio track, the Ham-penned “The Longest Night.”